Claimed by the Ruthless Alpha

Chapter 5

The next three days were filled with pain and hard work. My body felt like it was being pulled apart by two different horses. On one side, there was the crushing weight of the chores the pack gave me. On the other side, there was the growing power of my wolf, Aria. She was getting louder every day. She didn't like the way the other wolves looked at us. She didn't like the way we were forced to eat scraps while the warriors feasted on fresh meat.

But mostly, she hated the way Kael treated us.

Every time I saw him in the hallways or caught a whiff of his scent from a distance, my heart would jump. The bond was a cruel thing. It didn't care that he was mean. It didn't care that he had threatened to exile me. It only cared that he was our mate. It wanted us to run to him, to bury our face in his neck, and to hear him tell us everything would be okay.

But it wouldn't be okay. Kael Blackthorn was a man of stone.

On the morning of the ball, the pack house was a mess of noise and movement. Everyone was getting ready for the arrival of the other Alphas. Huge boxes of flowers were brought in. The kitchen smelled of roasting meat and sweet cakes. I was moved from the laundry to the kitchen to help with the heavy lifting.

"Move it, Omega! Those crates of wine aren't going to carry themselves," the head cook, a large man named Borin, yelled at me.

I wiped the sweat from my forehead and grabbed the handles of a heavy wooden crate. My muscles burned, but I didn't complain. I had learned a long time ago that complaining only brought more work. As I carried the crate toward the cellar, I saw Sarah and two of her friends standing in the hallway.

They were wearing beautiful silk robes. Their hair was done in complicated braids, and they smelled like expensive perfume. They looked like the royalty Kael wanted. I looked like a dirty rag.

"Oh, look," Sarah said, her voice loud and mocking. "The little trash wolf is working hard. Be careful, Elara. If you drop those bottles, the Alpha will probably skin you alive."

Her friends laughed. One of them, a girl with red hair, stepped forward and stuck her foot out.

I tried to stop, but the crate was too heavy and my momentum was too fast. I tripped, my boots catching on her leg. I went flying forward. The crate hit the stone floor with a loud *crash*. The sound of breaking glass echoed through the hall, and red wine began to soak into the floor like blood.

"Oops," the redhead giggled, her eyes sparkling with malice.

I stayed on my hands and knees, staring at the mess. I felt a sharp sting in my palm. A piece of broken glass had sliced deep into my skin.

"Look at what you did," Sarah sneered, stepping closer. She purposefully stepped on my hand—the one that was bleeding. Her heel dug into the cut, and I gasped in pain. "You are so clumsy. No wonder you’re an orphan. Even your parents probably didn't want a useless girl like you."

Something inside me snapped. It wasn't my wolf—not yet. It was me. The words about my parents hit a nerve that had been raw for years. I looked up at Sarah. For a second, my vision went white.

The air around me seemed to grow cold. The wine on the floor began to ripple, even though there was no wind. I felt a surge of heat in my chest, a silver fire that wanted to roar.

*Make them pay,* Aria whispered. *Show them what we are.*

"Get your foot off me," I said. My voice didn't sound like mine. It was low, steady, and had a strange power behind it.

Sarah laughed, but it sounded a bit forced. "Or what? You're going to bark at me?"

"I said, get your foot off me."

I didn't move a muscle, but a wave of pressure suddenly exploded from my body. It wasn't a blow, but it felt like a wall of air. Sarah was thrown back several feet, hitting the wall with a thud. Her friends screamed, tripping over their own feet to get away from me.

Sarah gasped, clutching her chest. She looked at me with wide, terrified eyes. "What... what did you do?"

I stood up slowly. The pain in my hand was gone. I looked down and saw the cut was already closing, a faint silver light stitching the skin back together. I didn't know how I had done it. I just knew that I felt stronger than I ever had in my life.

"I didn't do anything," I said, my voice returning to normal. "You tripped."

"What is going on here?"

The voice was like a thunderclap. We all froze. Kael was standing at the end of the hallway. He looked furious. His eyes moved from Sarah on the floor to the broken wine bottles, and finally to me.

Sarah immediately changed. She started to sob, her eyes filling with fake tears. "Alpha! Elara... she attacked me! She tripped and broke the wine, and when I tried to help her, she hit me with some kind of dark magic!"

Kael walked toward us. Every step he took made the floor seem to tremble. He stopped in front of me, his shadow falling over me like a shroud. He didn't look at Sarah. He looked at the wine on the floor, and then he looked at my hand.

He reached out and grabbed my wrist. He pulled my hand up to his face, inspecting the palm. The skin was smooth, but there was a faint red line where the cut had been.

"You healed yourself," he whispered, his voice dangerously low.

"I... I don't know," I said, trying to pull my hand back. He wouldn't let go. His grip was like a vice.

He looked at Sarah. "Get out. All of you."

"But Alpha, she—" Sarah started to protest.

"GET OUT!" Kael roared.